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THEY. shuts down Chicago with their first headlining show in the city

After coming to Chicago as an opening act for Bryson Tiller’s TRAPSOUL tour and Jeremih and PARTYNEXTDOOR’S Summer’s Over tour, THEY. were finally headlining their own.

THEY. introduced themselves as stars in their own right by coming out in hooded capes by emerging from the crowd in hooded capes to “Africa.” Wordless, THEY. stood facing each other, letting the track play out. However, when the opening bars to “Deep End,” the first THEY. song I fell in love with, they threw off their capes and were completely turned up.

What I find most interesting about concerts is that you can see the motivating force behind an artist. You can see if they are doing all this for the money, to party all the time, for their ego…I’ve seen any number of reasons. The best reasons I’ve seen which I see in THEY. is that they do this because they feel as if they aren’t meant to do this and can’t do anything else. This is how they express themselves. Drew shared a story about how he didn’t fit in growing up and when he was younger on his birthday some TP’d his house. He said the Nu religion movement and The Wolf Pac was the space where everyone can be themselves. Dante then initiated the crowd into the Wolf Pac with these words:

THEY.’s motivation is to be able to exist in a place where they can be themselves and express themselves. They want the same for everyone else.

While performing all their songs off Nu Religion: Hyena, it was a sonic journey to say the least. A lot of times with music, the lyrics or the beat are great, and the other is an afterthought. With THEY. considering the marriage of both these aspects, the songs are stronger, taking you to the mindset that they want you to be in.

Highlights from the show also included performing Motley Crew, with the whole audience doing the whip motion for “riding around Sunset Boulevard.” And while a lot of the time the show was very hype with songs like “U-Rite,” they did slow it down for “Silence” and a cover of The Weeknd’s “High for This.”

I’m very excited for what is next for THEY. I got to meet them after the show and they were very sweet. With how they interact with fans in person and online and the amount of attention and care they put into their music, I think THEY. will go far.

Check out more pictures from the show, their tour diary and the album below.